[lit-ideas] Muhammed and the Giant Peach
- From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 16:57:29 -0500
A very good article from Der Spiegel:
Democracy in a Cartoon
By Ibn Warraq
Best-selling author and Muslim dissident Ibn
Warraq argues that freedom of expression is our
western heritage and we must defend it against
attacks from totalitarian societies. If the west
does not stand in solidarity with the Danish, he
argues, then the Islamization of Europe will have
begun in earnest.
The cartoons in the Danish newspaper
Jyllands-Posten raise the most important question
of our times: freedom of expression. Are we in the
west going to cave into pressure from societies
with a medieval mindset, or are we going to defend
our most precious freedom -- freedom of
expression, a freedom for which thousands of
people sacrificed their lives?
A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of
expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even
to insult and offend. It is a freedom sorely
lacking in the Islamic world, and without it Islam
will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical,
medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and
intolerant. Without this fundamental freedom,
Islam will continue to stifle thought, human
rights, individuality; originality and truth.
Unless, we show some solidarity, unashamed, noisy,
public solidarity with the Danish cartoonists,
then the forces that are trying to impose on the
Free West a totalitarian ideology will have won;
the Islamization of Europe will have begun in
earnest. Do not apologize.
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,398853,00.html
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